Forked Thread: Everybody happy now? - Reprinting Monster Stat Blocks

[Nymrohd]

I still think that the GSL could have handled this better by allowing a product to reprint monster stat blocks with certain provisions.

 

[thundershot]

Here's a dumb question that I haven't seen addressed. How does everything work in regards to non-WOTC monster books? Say Goodman Games allows people to harvest Dungeon Denizens for 3rd party adventures, and then Necromancer does the same thing with their hopefully inevitable Tome of Horrors? Is THAT okay? Or if someone decides to do a series with more versions of creatures. The "Kobold Kompendium" and it's got tons of new Kobolds with different abilities.

Just curious...
Chris

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Well, from a business stand point it makes a lot of sense. At the very least, I'm sure things like d20srd.org, as incredibly useful as the site was, amounted to a lot of consternation.

Right. I am sure WoTC was consternated that folks weren't using their own free copy of the SRD, that they released themselves. For everyone. Several times.

Because of course if folks weren't using d20srd.org to get around having to buy the PHB, they'd... uhh... use WoTC's own SRD to get around having to buy they PHB.

Or something.

And that's to speak nothing of the publishers which actually repackaged and sold the SRD, in not just PDF forms but in print as well.

Yes, let's not speak of that thing that WoTC predicted would happen in the very first FAQ they ever released for the SRD-- and if I may paraphrase, said, "If people are stupid enough to pay you for something we're giving away for free, go for it."

Let's not speak of that ever again.


Nothing that happened with regards to the OGL came as a surprise to WoTC. So it is not as if the GSL is designed to somehow tweak the rules and if folks just "play nice" this time around, everything will go "as intended."

The GSL is a complete rejection of the OGL as it was conceived and intended.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

So I have about seven powers which are straight from the MM (like the hobgoblin's resilience and phalanx powers). These are in the stat blocks referencing the MM (not defined or rewritten to be identical mechanically with different text), but I also put in a sidebar in Act One telling GM's to begin their prep here. In this box I list all the powers references from the MM in a convenient block. This allows a GM to take five minutes and copy the powers out of the MM or print the refereneced monsters from the DDI.

Holy crap, I never even thought of this!

Is this your IP or can I steal it without permission?

 

[Mark]

And that's to speak nothing of the publishers which actually repackaged and sold the SRD, in not just PDF forms but in print as well.

When asked by me point blank, Scott Rouse told me the precise opposite in a phone call just after the oringinal GSL was announced regarding my own SRD 3.5 Revised (3,500 super-linked PDF pgs, GM's Day Sale ending today).

 

[defendi]

Holy crap, I never even thought of this!

Is this your IP or can I steal it without permission?

Oh dear God please steal that idea, or come up with a better one I can steal. My only purpose on this is that when I run a playtest in 4e, I'm annoyed by the fact that I have to look up those powers every fight. If you put out an adventure and don't mitigate that one annoying thing as much as possible, I'll be very mad at you when I run that adventure.